Such beds have a rise and fall facility and frequently also have a folding facility so that the patient can be given inclined back support or lie in a position with the head higher than the feet.
The rise and fall motion is commonly provided by actuators which rely on a telescopic unit powered by screw and nut mechanism. Linak NS of Denmark supply such linear actuators.
In our Patent No. 2002301101 we describe rise and fall patients beds in which a wheeled carriage has a pair of lugs which project through a pair of slots in the front face of a generally planar bed head enclosed in sheet steel. Such carriages descend almost to the floor level and have an electrically driven screw which raises and lowers the carriage. The carriage rises to care height, namely the level at which it is comfortable for staff to handle a patient without stooping. While being reliable and constructionally stable, the bed ends are as wide as the mattress frame, namely 900 mm and 1000 mm high. Thus passage through doors is only possible if the ends are detached from the mattress frame so that the mattress can be turned on its side. The mechanism tends to be noisy and slow taking 40-50 seconds to execute the full range of movement.